By the end of July, 1812 the British commanders in Quebec received word that the orders in Council had been repealed. With this information, the Governor in Chief Sir George Prevost sent a copy of the dispatch to the American Major General Henry Dearborn at Albany, and requested an armistice be established to give the Madison administration time to consider the news and end hostilities. Major Dearborn agreed to an armistice and called on his frontier commanders to end hostilities on August 8th. President Madison informed Congress and Major Dearborn that there would be no turning back from war. Even though the Orders in Council was repealed, it was not accompanied by a stop to the impressment of soldiers. Thus, on August 15th, Madison ordered Dearborn to terminate the armistice and renew efforts to invade Canada. The Prevost-Dearborn armistice was formerly ended on September 8th. In the long run, the armistice gave America an advantage as it served to delay British efforts to aggressively mobilize into the Old Northwest after the surrender of Detroit. It also gave time for Americans to regroup and strengthen their forces under Major General Stephen van Rensselaer at the Niagara River.
But in the short run, it played a role in the surrender of Detroit. Major General Henry Dearborn was the commander of all American forces and his headquarters were located at Albany, New York. Dearborn's plan of campaign was to invade with four armies from Lake Champlain, Sackett's Harbor, Niagara and Detroit. Dearborn received 4 separate orders between June 26th and August 15th to pursue this attack with vigor and urgency. Aside from the agreement to the armistice with Sir George Prevost, Dearborn obeyed none of these orders. Furthermore, the signing of the armistice permitted the British to leave their eastern ports and reinforce General Isaac Brock at Detroit. According to Prevost's diary, this gave the British an incredible advantage by allowing them to send reinforcements of men, money and supplies of "every kind to General Brock". According to Burton, Stocking and Miller (The City of Detroit, Michigan page 1029), "Dearborn, in all his weakness of character, was plainly tricked by the British and the latter openly boasted of the fact."
In Madison's 1812 annual address he made a brief mention of the armistice and why it was rejected.
"The documents from the Department of State which relate to this subject will give a view also of the propositions for an armistice which have been received here, one of them from the authorities at Halifax and in Canada, the other from the British Government itself through Admiral Warren, and of the grounds on which neither of them could be accepted."http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29454
Historical Dictionary of the War of 1812, Robert Malcomson (2006) pg 442
The City of Detroit Michigan, Clarence Monroe Burton, William Stocking, Gordon K. Miller (1922) page 1029
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